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[pezzonovante]

Civil Rights Groups Protest Law Firm Over Taking Controversial Case

For the record, anyone who tries to do that to me will find out what I am really like when I get angry.

Also, I'm very peeved at K&S for what they did.  And mildly peeved at HRC.  Their statement on K&S's obligation to clients is a facile argument, and someone in the upper echelons

Comments

[benndragon]

It is fair for HRC to point out that someone who is proudly proclaiming to have a position is defending a person/group that seems to oppose that position. It would also be fair for K&S to say "We believe all people deserve a fair trial, because that's what makes our legal system awesome. So we're not going to drop them, any more than we would drop any of our other clients." They made their bed, they should have the guts to lie in it, IMHO.

[pezzonovante]

They made their bed, they should have the guts to lie in it, IMHO.I'd go even further and say that under the rules that govern attorney behavior, they have to lie in it. We're fairly restricted in when we can dump a client: if they don't pay, if they refuse to cooperate with the court, if they ask you to commit a crime for them, if they commit a crime against you, and the like. A sudden PR disaster is not one of the valid reasons for dumping a client. Which is why I'm so mad at K&S

[benndragon]

Ah, gotcha. In that light of thatr, you're totally right about the K&S fail, and it makes HRC look rather like assholes (which, as one of those horrible bisexual people, on top of which I don't do monogamy, I was already learning strongly towards them being).

[ddrpolaris]

If K&S were treating gay employees badly

"The contract, which was entered into with U.S. House of Representatives General Counsel Kerry Kircher on behalf of the House's Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to defend DOMA in court, contains a provision that prohibits all King & Spalding attorneys and non-attorney employees from any advocacy to "alter or amend" DOMA."

Ummmmmm... this was one of the ways in which they were treating their gay employees badly, and triggered a big part of the shit storm reaction.

[rgfgompei]

"“King and Spalding’s clients are listed on its web site"

WTF?!? Can they do that?

Ok, so what HRC did was contact people whose names were listed in a public forum and inform them of 2 bits of public information and 1 oninion: (1)their website says they support diversity and (2)they are taking this case. (opinion 1) we think that is bad.

I absolutely agree that HRC's intention was to get clients to drop the firm, and as a psychologist I know the importance of social pressure and the limits on how carefully we assess most bits of info we encounter, but the law likes to pretend that almost all people act completely rationally and with free will all the time, under which assumptions I can't see how HRC did anything wrong. People should know what K&S are doing and it is up to them to realize that lawyers should give everyone fair trials, just like doctors should give everyone medical treatment

[freetobeme18]

I appreciate your LiveJournal. It is informative.